Leave the Hero's Ex-Girlfriend Alone! - Chapter 25

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Leave the hero’s ex-girlfriend alone!
EP25
The figure across the alley wasn’t Alpha.
It was a villain.
I remembered him because he was one of the ones who had kidnapped me once or twice.
He was more of a bumbling sort of villain, you could say.
In the end, we’d even waited for Alpha ‘together’ and swapped jokes.
What was it again? Didn’t he say he got bullied among the villains for having no ability?
“Hey.”
When I called out, the villain jumped and spun around.
“You haven’t been around lately. Why are you hanging around here like this?”
“Oh, hello. I’m off duty today, so I was just, um, looking around the neighborhood…”
Off duty…?
Villains get days off too?
I frowned, unable to make sense of it.
“You probably didn’t know, but I’ve repented. I work at the Association now.”
“You repented?”
“Yes, I don’t do bad things anymore.”
He wore a calm expression, as if he had truly changed his ways.
Still, something about it felt off…?
But if he really had changed his ways, he was still useful.
“Then help me out. I need you to do what you’re good at. Kidnapping.”
“Kidnapping… you mean?”
“I’m not actually asking you to go through with it. I just need you to be able to summon Alpha.”
At the word kidnapping, the villain’s eyes lit up.
Just then, a murky purple Wave appeared around the villain.
It looked like a skein of thread tangled a thousand times over, a complete mess.
The Wave quivered precariously, as though it were pressed into a mold and might burst at any moment.
‘What is that…?’
Drawn in as if by a spell, I reached out my hand.
The moment my fingertip touched that strange Wave.
Wajajak-!
I heard the sound of something cracking.
The purple skein, which had been tightly knotted, slowly began to unravel.
“Ah, ah… wait a moment… You said kidnapping, didn’t you…?”
“Uh, uh…?”
What’s wrong with him all of a sudden?
He’s been repeating the same thing over and over since earlier.
His eyes looked like they’d gone completely out of his mind.
Flustered, I reached out my hand again.
Tuk.
Just then, someone seized my hand.
“I think you’d better stop.”
A white shirt, sleeves casually rolled up.
And there stood Zero, wearing his usual smile.
Yet his eyes were not smiling.
* * *
“Why on earth did you stop me?”
I sprawled over the café table, nearly lying flat on it.
Propping my chin on one hand, I stirred the straw in the iced Americano in front of me now and then and asked.
Inside the glass, ice clinked together with a small sound.
“Hmm…”
Across from me, Zero let out a short breath.
He turned the glass slowly with his fingers and tilted his head to one side.
“I’m not certain, so it’s a bit delicate to bring up, but there’s a statistical reason.”
I furrowed my brows slightly.
“A statistical reason?”
When I tilted my head and asked, Zero gave a slight nod.
“Haven’t you ever found it strange?”
I stopped the hand that had been toying with the straw.
“In what way?”
“Getting kidnapped and threatened over and over, and still being alive to talk about it.”
“Well… it’s because Alpha always comes to rescue me.”
Zero simply lowered his gaze.
He tapped the rim of his glass lightly with his fingertip, sending a faint ripple through the surface.
“That could happen. But they could also kill you for real and summon Alpha that way.”
“That’s a rather frightening hypothesis.”
I trailed off and laughed.
“But that’s what everyone says, you know.”
This time, Zero tapped the table with his finger.
“The moment I saw you… that desire vanished.”
The café was filled with a comfortable hum of noise.
The hiss of coffee brewing, the clink of plates, the murmur of people talking.
Strangely, only Zero’s words lodged themselves clearly in my ears.
“Do you remember what you did each time you were kidnapped?”
Zero asked, lifting his head.
I blinked.
“I just begged them to let me live, right? Anyone would do that in a situation like that.”
“Anyone does, but not everyone gets to live.”
The answer sounded like a chilling warning.
Zero drummed his fingertips on the table once more.
Tap, tap.
Then he drew in a short breath and nudged his cup a little farther away.
“That’s what people say. That your heart… somehow bends strangely. That when they saw you pleading for your life, they simply couldn’t bring themselves to kill you.”
“No, it was never about me in the first place.”
I scratched my cheek, wondering if Zero was overreacting a little.
Whenever villains kidnapped me, the first thing they always said was, ‘Call Alpha!’
In other words, I was basically a pager, a beeper of sorts.
“I’m not a hypnotist or anything…”
He’s got a real talent for saying utterly absurd things as if they were true.
From now on, I’ll have to be careful when talking with Zero.
“Well, I just mean statistically speaking.”
Zero leaned back slightly in his chair, pulling away.
Lacing his fingers together and tilting the corner of his mouth, he carried himself as though he were tossing out a joke.
I pressed the straw down again for no good reason.
The ice clinked softly against the inside of the cup.
The air seemed to have grown a little awkward.
Was I really the sort of person who sat across from Zero like this, sipping coffee together?
And what did any of that have to do with what happened earlier?
Somehow I just felt tossed about by words that made no sense to me.
“Why were you holding on to that friend of yours, anyway?”
“Ah, well, about that.”
I swished the straw around and began to speak.
“No, listen. That guy went silent on me, didn’t he? Just like that, out of nowhere? Every time I try to meet up, it’s one excuse after another—”
My words came faster and faster.
I poured it out with gestures, without pausing for breath, until I suddenly realized how strange this was and faltered.
“But why am I going on and on about this to you?”
Zero rested his elbow on the table and smiled faintly.
“Hm… is it because Haesoo doesn’t have any friends?”
“…Wow.”
My jaw dropped a little.
That was a seriously shocking thing to say.
Does he think a pager can’t be hurt?
Well, to be fair, it’s not exactly wrong.
I wasted all my school days chasing after Alpha, and between the envy and jealousy of the people around me, I never managed to make real friends.
Yeah, reap what you sow, I suppose.
Still, how could he say something like that right to my face…
“You’re… really mean, you know that?”
Zero covered his mouth with his hand and laughed at my words.
“Then how have you been seeing me until now? I’m a villain, you know, a decent one at that.”
“I thought you were some punk from the neighborhood.”
I crossed my arms and answered, sounding bored.
“Hmph.”
Zero cleared his throat, then swiped a knuckle across his lips as if trying to hold back a laugh.
“I’ll listen to your troubles, even if it’s just me. Go ahead and talk, nice and easy.”
“I’m good, thanks.”
“You said he went into hiding, right? That’s all I’ve heard so far.”
Zero smiled brightly, looking ready to wait as long as it took for me to speak.
“He hasn’t contacted me since he went dark. Before that, he kept chasing after me even when I told him to back off. I have no idea why.”
“Could there be some reason only Alpha knows about?”
“What kind of reason?”
“Well, who knows.”
Zero curled his eyes into a smile and wrapped both hands around his cup.
“Still… I think I sort of get it, though.”
I scoffed through my nose.
“Come on, how would you know what that guy is thinking?”
Zero shrugged.
“People of a similar sort always recognize each other, you know.”
I kept staring at Zero, still unconvinced.
Under that gaze, he added one more remark.
“Hero or villain… it’s just a hair’s breadth of difference.”
Zero made a bitter face, then looked at me again.
“Nothing out of the ordinary happened between you two, then?”
“Not really. We just messed around like usual, and he clung to me like always…”
My voice trailed off.
I lowered my head a little and stirred the ice in my cup.
“…Oh. No way.”
In an instant, a memory flashed through my mind.
A dark night, in a hospital room…
I told myself that couldn’t be it, yet a part of me thought it could very well be.
Just then, Zero chuckled quietly from across the table.
“That’s usually the right answer.”
If that’s true, isn’t that its own kind of strange?
Ever since we drifted onto that uninhabited island, and judging by how he’d been acting, there was no way I could pretend not to notice that Alpha still had feelings for me.
Somehow, everything kept feeling slightly out of sync.
Then—
Bang-!!
A deafening roar suddenly rang out.
A tremor crawled up through the floor.
The glasses on the table trembled, and the people at the next table turned their heads around in alarm.
Clatter—
In the end, the cup slipped and fell to the floor.
“W-what’s going on?”
“…No way.”
Zero shifted his gaze toward the window and murmured.
Outside, a silhouette was raging, letting out a shriek.
Ji-ing—
Once again, a sound rang out that made my eardrums throb.
The noise drilled sharply into my ears.
Faced with a situation that made no sense, I clamped a hand over my mouth.
It was definitely…
The villain who had said he worked for the Association and would never do anything wicked again.
That villain.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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